The Isolated
by KnifeoftheMoon
Summary: Lauren Holsworth, guardian of seven children, lives apart from the rest of the town. Will she be able to keep herself and her family alive without help from adults? And what happens when new faces show up, some willing to help, and others... Not so much. (All things Canon belong to Michael Grant.)
1. Chapter 1

It had been three months since the FAYZ began, and Lauren's new motto was 'if you can salt it, you can eat it'. Of course, this didn't exactly go for everything. She wasn't going to eat her clothes, or one of her guinea pigs. The little cavies were adorable, and she was incredibly attached to both of them.

But if it came to it, Lauren supposed she'd have to. The disappearance of the adults had left her the guardian of seven children, all of whom were getting thinner and thinner as time passed. Of the seven, only two were related to her. Two of the remaining five had been over for a playdate when the adults vanished, and the other three had come running, scared, when their parents had gone. They knew Lauren would help them. Lauren, who, before the FAYZ, had been so confident and brave. As far as they knew, she could do anything. As far as she knew, they were all going to starve. Unless she came up with a plan.

Lauren glanced at the clock. 2 am. The only ones still awake were her, her eleven-year-old sister Ivy, and Ivy's friend Anna. Ivy and Anna were playing cards. Lauren was playing scenarios in her mind, something she often did when she was stressed or upset.

Scenario One, she ran into town to search for edibles. Lauren estimated that they had about a week's worth of rations left, so something involving food had to happen. Then again, the town had probably been sifted through a hundred times already by other kids. And if she did find food, nothing would stop those other kids from taking it away. She wasn't sure anyone would stand up for her if such a thing did happen anyway. Pre-FAYZ, Lauren hadn't had much to do with the other teenagers around Perdido Beach. She didn't even go to school with them, having preferred to be homeschooled instead.

However, Lauren hadn't stayed out of town altogether. A few times, she'd gone on scouting missions, just to see what was up, or sometimes collect food. One of the earlier times had caused her to decide to just hang back from everyone else. There had been some sort of battle, and there was a kid with a tentacle for an arm, and a pack of coyotes, and kids with superpowers.

Superpowers. Like the kinds in comic books.

"Have any... Sevens?" Ivy said casually from the seat next to Lauren.

"Yeah, I- Hey! No cheating!" Anna set her cards down.

It had been weird enough knowing that strange things were happening in town. But then they started happening in Lauren's house. Brandon, one of the neighbor boys, had been the first in her care to develop powers. The nine-year-old had crashed into a wall during a game of tag and went right through. He apparently possessed a form of intangibility. Next was Ivy, Lauren's own sister. She could see through things by just touching them.

Despite the situation, Lauren was excited when she discovered her own abilities. If she timed things right, angled her hands at the ground at just the right instant, she could jump. High.

It was an exilharating experience. Being twenty feet or more in the air, seeing the ground rush up at you, it was all amazing. Landing had been tricky at first, until she learned to, once again, angle her hands at the right moment. Touching down on the ground felt less like hitting her feet with a hammer and more like landing on a pillow after that.

Movement attracted her attention, and Lauren looked up to find her other sister, Rose, at the end of the hall.

"I'm hungry."

Lauren sighed and got up. "We're all hungry, Rosie. That's the problem." She got her sister a glass of water, though she knew it wouldn't do much.

Back to the issue of food.

What did they have in abundance here? Water, she guessed, but it wasn't like she could change that into sandwiches or something. What else? What did people here overlook, or just plain abandon? Houses? But she couldn't eat those. Unless they were gingerbread.

Pets? That was more likely, but she didn't want to eat a dog, or a cat, or a... rabbit. Rabbits were a different matter entirely. Lauren had eaten rabbit before. It tasted like chicken. The thought of chicken made her mouth water.

What was it they said about rabbits, anyway? That they bred like lightning. All she had to do was find a pair. Or more. She could collect rabbits, and start a farm. Then she could trade them for other things, and they'd make it. This was brilliant.

She just had to hope that there were still some alive.


	2. Chapter 2

Nathan was tired. Tired and incredibly hungry. Sure, he had the forest and knowledge of edible plants, which was more than most other kids had, but other kids had... Other kids. Companions. Which was more than he had.

He hadn't been completely alone for the past four months, but mostly alone was just enough. Anyways, Nate was fine with being alone as long as Will didn't show up.

Unfortunately, Will had indeed shown up. Three days ago. And now he was chasing Nate.

Before the barrier had appeared, before the adults had disappeared, the boys hadn't even known each other. Now they were enemies.

Well, at first they had been something like wilderness survival buddies. Both had been camping in the woods at the start of the insanity. Both had reasonable knowledge of how to live in the great outdoors. Both were around the same age.

That was where the similarities ended.

Nathan had suspected that Will was crazy in the first place. The other boy had seemed emotionless most of the time, unless he was doing something 'fun'. Fun to Will meant killing the animals they hunted in gruesome ways, and beating up Nate in the sparring matches they had to keep boredom at bay. Will was stronger than him, and Nate knew it.

Now he really wished he'd listened to his instincts in the first place and gotten out of there. Things had gotten even worse when Will suddenly developed weird powers. They hadn't been noticable at first. Nate would just suddenly feel tired at the exact moment Will got a burst of energy.

He eventually connected the dots. Will wasn't a normal human. He was some kind of energy vampire. As soon as he'd figured that out, Will had started using his powers more and more often. And eventually, Nathan had run.

That was three months ago. Two moths ago, Nate had found that he could freeze things with a touch. It stung his hands a little, and drained him considerably, but it was still cool.

A little practice, and he could freeze things from a foot away. Then two. Then a yard. He kept on getting better and better until he could freeze things from exactly eleven feet away. Nate had scared Will off with his new abilities. For a while at least.

But now his enemy was back, and it seemed Nathan wasn't the only one who had gotten stronger. He couldn't even let Will see him, or he'd suddenly feel exhausted. Such a thing had happened this morning, but Nate had fought through it and lost the other boy. Now he just needed something to eat and somewhere hidden to sleep.

He could always head for the town. He'd actually checked it out a few times before. But he didn't know much about it or those who lived there. And honestly, Nate had done so much zig-zagging to escape Will that he wasn't sure where he was.

He sighed and leaned against a pine tree. Things would be better tomorrow.

Nate had always love that statement, even though it had depressing undertones.

Because, well, 'Tomorrow' never came.


	3. Chapter 3

Pansy was grumpy, but that was old news. The older girls she was staying with wouldn't give her any cantalope unless she cleaned up the kitchen for them. So Pansy wasn't grumpy, she was mad. She was only seven! Too small to reach the sink without a stool, and not good at scrubbing things. The big girls were lazy butts and she wasn't going to help them.

Pansy knew she was sneaky enough. She'd take some of the food, then leave and let them clean up for themselves.

The downstairs was empty, dark, and quiet, because the big girls were upstairs talking. Empty, dark, and quiet were good things when you were trying to sneak.

She already had a backpack. It was her old one from when she still went to school. Pansy had filled it with her favorite sweater, a water bottle, some other things, and her stuffed elephant. She always carried the elephant around nowdays. It reminded her of her mom.

Before the grown-ups had disappeared, Pansy had called the toy 'Ellie'. When her mom was gone, Pansy changed the name to 'Einstein'. That was the name her mom had suggested when she first got the elephant, so that was the name the elephant would have forever.

In the kitchen, Pansy climbed on top of the counter to reach the melon the other girls had tried to put out of her reach. But Pansy was too smart for them. She stuffed the entire melon into the bag, then grabbed the big knife hanging by the door. One of the big girls always carried it with her when she went out, so Pansy would do the same.

She didn't really know where to go, but Pansy knew she was too smart to get lost. That's what her mom used to say. The front door squeaked when she opened it, so she slipped out as quickly as she could and started walking down the road.

It was always completely dark at night, because some dummy had shut off all the lights. Well, there were a few weird green lights, but they didn't do too much. But Pansy knew the way down the street, at least for a little bit.

Then she couldn't remember which way she was walking, or think of where she should be walking. She bumped her head on a pole, and almost tripped over the sidewalk. After that, she had walked much more carefully, then just kept walking until she was too tired to move any more. Then she just slept.

A voice and a hand woke Pansy up.

"Hey sweetie, are you okay?"

"Why does she have a knife, Lauren? Mom says knifes are bad."

"Shut up, Rose."

"Ivy, that's not nice."

Pansy opened her eyes, and quickly saw a group of kids around her. There was one big girl, and two little big girls, a girl who looked younger than her, and four boys. She didn't want to look at the boys too long. They might give her eyeballs cooties.

"I'm Lauren," said the big girl. "What's your name?"

"Pansy."

"Did you come from the town?"

"Yeah," Pansy said, frowning a little bit. "But I don't like my house there. The people are mean."

"Well, Pansy, how about you come inside. You can stay with us."

Pansy didn't want to stay with more people who might get mean all of a sudden, and she didn't want cooties, but she also didn't have any other ideas. "Okay," she said, and followed the others inside.


	4. Chapter 4

It hadn't taken Laura long to find two healthy rabbits. She'd used some old hunting traps. The problem was, both were female. She wasn't sure if and when she'd be able to find a male... Until she found somebody's pet rabbit on one of her scouting trips.

It was a scrawny thing that looked like it would drop dead at any second. That is, until the new girl, Pansy, started caring for him.

It was like the girl had a magic touch. Or at least an incredible gift for taking care of animals. There weren't any babies yet, of course, but it was nice to know that if they could survive for a few months, they'd have a steady source of meat. In the meantime, Lauren and some of the older children caught rabbits, some of which they ate, and hunted for scraps in the town. The younger kids took care of the garden.

Lauren had forgotten about the garden until Rose brought it up. Luckily for them, the plants weren't dead. Well, not all the way. It had taken a while to get the plants into a sorta-decent condition.

Giving the other kids things to do helped keep them in line. That had been difficult at the start of the FAYZ, and was still a little hard now. Lauren just hadn't known what to do. Her own sisters sometimes wouldn't listen to her, as she wasn't Mom. And she wasn't even related to the other children. She hadn't even known what to do to get them to listen at first, but it had gotten easier as time went by.

Despite a bright future, Lauren still had to worry about getting food in the present. Otherwise... Well, there went the bright future. Rations had been even stricter these days, much to the annoyance of the other kids. Lauren knew they had to find another source of food, and soon.

The town had almost nothing left for them to find, their farming projects would definitely take time, and rabbit-hunting didn't get nearly enough for all nine of them. Everyone was getting thinner and weaker, and she hated thinking about it, but... What if they all starved?

Lauren shook the thought away. She didn't want to think about death, she wanted to think about life, and how to preserve it. Maybe it was time for another scavenging trip. And this time, a more extreme one.

She'd known that it was likely that there would be food left in the other houses, but Lauren had always shied away from that option. She didn't want to break in and steal from other people, even if the other people weren't present. It just felt wrong to her. But she didn't care right now. She could live with that if it would help them survive.

"Anna, Ivy!" she called the girls. "I'm going to go look for food. Keep an eye on things?" Mike, one of the neighbor boys, was eleven as well. But he was busy checking the traps.

"Sure," Ivy said, then whispered to Anna, "We're in cha-arge!"

Lauren sighed. "Don't boss everyone around, okay?"

"Yeah, yeah."

Hopefully this would work out.


	5. Chapter 5

Nate woke up to the lovely surprise of a hunting knife in the side. Will was back, and now he had sharp things. Hooray. Nate glared at the other boy as Will retrieved his knife. Glaring was all he could bring himself to do. Still groggy from sleep, too exhausted to run, and now with a gash that his mind still wasn't comprehending.

Was it even there? Or was he hallucinating?

The pain finally hit him like a wave of fire. Yep. It was there. And so was Will. Just standing over him like he'd won.

Won what exactly? Ownership over Nate's life? Hell no.

"That cut looks pretty bad, Nate. It'd probably be best if you just stay with me for a while."

Nate figured he should stop monologuing to himself and get the heck out of there before he passed out or completely lost the resolve.

He jumped to his feet ready to make a quick escape, but fell back down and ended up leaning against a tree for support. That went a lot smoother in his mind.

"Maybe you should sit down," Will said, waving his hands at Nate. He felt most of his remaining energy seep away, and cursed mentally. It was now or never.

Nate pushed away from the tree and started running downhill. His legs protested. His side burned. His mind begged him for sleep, but agreed that living was a good idea. Behind him, he could sense that Will had gotten over the initial surprise and was now giving chase. Crap.

Nate pressed one hand on his wound as he ran. Couldn't have himself passing out from blood loss, now, could he? His gut told him that he was heading in the direction of the town, and that was good. Maybe Will would give up and turn around if there were other people. Or better yet, find someone else to bother. The trees were starting to wobble and darken, as if the forest was a mirage, but Nate kept running.

Maybe he'd find someone in town to help him. Someone with food. The thought kept him going. Unfortunately, not going fast enough. Will was catching up.

Nate knew the town was close. He also knew that it was time to make a stupid descision.

Turning to face Will, Nate aimed his right hand at the other boy and fired an icy blast. He'd aimed for Will's chest, but his darkening vision made things unpredictable. Nate was pretty sure the ice had hit Will's foot instead. Either way, his enemy fell. Nate turned and continued running.

_If I just..._ everything was suddenly too blurry to make out.

_Make it..._ His legs and hands felt numb. Everything else hurt.

_To town... _He took one final step, and faceplanted on the ground.

_Things will be better tomorrow,_ he thought bitterly. And then everything went black.


End file.
